Phoenix Anarchist History Project

Tuesday, November 11, 2014

Two weeks ago, the Wave of Action's anti-police-brutality march at Civic
Space Park culminated in a flurry of hurled protester flags, police
pepper-spray balls and six arrests. The group's demonstration against
capitalism at Cesar Chavez Memorial Plaza on Nov. 1 drew a thinner crowd
and produced just one arrest.

On Wednesday, members of the Phoenix group marched in downtown Phoenix to protest a host of issues, ranging from genetically modified foods to police brutality to government corruption.

Dozens of police officers tailed the Phoenix arm of Wednesday's "Million-Mask March" on bicycle or monitored the group via watch posts, but the event went peacefully.

The group's philosophy is nebulous, but its demonstrations tend to
follow a common narrative: Events are publicized on social media,
attended by mostly masked 20-somethings and shadowed by a heavy police
presence.

Depending on whom you ask, Wave of Action is either a tribute, an
affiliate, an offshoot or a knockoff of networks such as the
hacktivist group Anonymous or the Occupy movement. Even within Phoenix, memberships in what some call anarchist groups themselves are fluid, with various organizations continuously appearing and dissipating.

"Someone asked me what their cause was, and I said, 'I'm glad I'm not their spokesman,'" said Sgt. Trent Crump, a Phoenix police spokesman.

Phoenix
police's community-response squad and the department's Homeland Defense
Bureau have for years monitored similar movements on social media.

Crump said the group seems to be bent on disrupting the downtown area
and prefers to have an audience. The Oct. 25 anti-police-brutality
protest coincided with the city's annual Zombie Walk festival, which
drew more than 10,000 attendees.

The Nov. 1 event posed less of a threat, Crump said, because there were
no large-scale events downtown that day. But police noticed that one of
the members was provoking others, calling for participants to attend the
event armed.

Seven have been arrested recently -- six at the anti-police-brutality
rally for charges including failure to obey police and obstructing a
public thoroughfare, and one at the anti-capitalism event for an
outstanding warrant from Peoria Municipal Court.

Police said the Oct. 25 event started peacefully enough but soon became a
public nuisance when marchers began entering the roadway, obstructing
traffic and disregarding orders from police.

Alexander Kennedy, one of those arrested Oct. 25, said the police
presence was thin at the movement's earlier marches against police
brutality, which have been happening since the Aug. 9 police shooting of
Michael Brown in Ferguson, Mo.

He said it's only been since the media spotlight on Ferguson has dimmed that Phoenix
police began boosting their presence at Wave of Action events. Kennedy
said he's been targeted by police because of his involvement in Phoenix's Occupy movement.

Kennedy said he was the only one in his group arrested.

"It was like, 'This guy's an organizer, a known agitator,'" he said.

Crump said the police don't believe the group is necessarily dangerous,
but an inconvenience that diverts manpower from other areas of the city.

The group's Facebook page describes it as "struggling in solidarity with
the global uprising against misery," and features the motto "Destroy
what destroys you."

Participants say there is no leadership structure, per se, and that the
group's Facebook page serves as the most centralized means of
communication.

Anonymous is an international movement that gained notoriety for a
series of cyberattacks against the government and private companies. The
group has since become a sort of social vigilante, targeting
child-pornography sites and Hunter Moore, the creator of the most
infamous revenge-porn website.

It was the Anonymous brand that organized Wednesday's Million-Mask
March, and the movement served as an umbrella of the various
collectives.

Dressed in the march's standard Guy Fawkes mask, protester T.J. Ammons, a
chef, said Wednesday that he was marching against genetically modified
foods and police brutality. Ammons said he believes a group of people,
regardless of pet causes, can unite to agree that the system is broken.

"The whole idea is, there are too many problems, so now it's just one
collective, so that we can cover all of the bases," he said. "And that's
where people get thrown off. But where does it say that you only have
to march for one idea? Where does it say that you only have to cover one
topic?"

Ammons said he does not align with Wave of Action but participates in
other movements such as Anonymous' "Operation Safe Winter" and marches
against Monsanto, a St. Louis company that is among those that creates
genetically modified crops.

But some say decentralized leadership and philosophies has also bred
infighting amongst the splinter groups and even those within them.

Protesters, ostensibly angry over the same core system, are consistently
at odds over brand messaging and treatment of law enforcement, said
Harvey Donner, a student at Mesa Community College who marched on
Wednesday.

Donner said he was disappointed that so many the marchers were
antagonistic toward police and government. Despite remaining inside
legal boundaries on Wednesday, many of the protesters joined in vague
government-hate chants and taunted nearby police.

Donner noted a moment during the march in which a group of people
waiting in line for a concert started cackling at the protesters.

"We're not painting a good message to the people," he said. "My personal
view is that we are at a point where we need to educate the public, and
you can't prove to people that there's a hood over their eyes by
punching them in the face."

Monday, September 1, 2008

Everyone is invited to celebrate the 107th anniversary of William McKinley's assassination on Saturday, September 6th!

There will be kickball and a potluck at Mitchel Park, in Tempe, at 4:30 pm. Bring some food and lets have a good fucking time!(bring friends)

William
McKinley was the 25th president of the United states, from 1897 to
1901. McKinley was a dirty capitalist who "hoped to make American
producers supreme in world markets". One of the ways he did this was to
push the annexation of Hawaii in 1897. He hoped to americanize it and
establish a naval base. McKinley's ties to capitalism are also seen in
his appointments; he made John George Alexander Leishman, president of
Carnegie Steel, the minister to Switzerland and Turkey.

Two wars
were fought while he was in office, the Spanish-American war and the
Philippine-American war, which resulted in the death of almost 300,000
people.

He was shot twice by Leon Czolgosz, an anarchist.
Czolgosz acted alone and is quoted as saying, "I killed President
McKinley because I done my duty. I didn't believe one man should have
so much service and another man should have none.". He was sentenced to
death.

Wednesday, September 20, 2006

Police documented last week 11 graffiti drawings, all including anarchy or peace signs, and believe the vandalism is related.

Residents in the northern part of town began calling police the morning of Sept. 10 to report red "tagged" walls and power boxes, said Crime Prevention Officer Rick Cookemboo.

Police are offering up to a $250 reward for information on the graffiti that occurred Sept. 10.

All reports were north of Mockingbird Lane and most were near the intersection of Doubletree Ranch and Invergordon roads.

"I don't think there was any rhyme or reason to where they hit," Officer Cookemboo said.

Police officers believe the tags were not gang-related and possibly just one or more juveniles with paint cans, Officer Cookemboo.

"We think it is kids because true anarchists would not put a heart next to it (an anarchy symbol)," he said, who added the department plans to put up posters around schools to urge students to report information anonymously.

Officer Cookemboo works in Paradise Valley classrooms encouraging youth to make good decisions and said he has seen the anarchist symbol sketched on some students' notebooks..

"Many are using it to show protest to the war," he said.

Paradise Police Chief John Wintersteen said residents report information to the graffiti hotline, run by the Northwest Phoenix Block Watch Coalition, a group that Paradise Valley donates $500 a year to assist with incidents such as this one.

In March, Martinez was accused of shooting at former Mesa council
candidate JT Ready. Ready, a concealed weapons instructor and member of
several civilian border patrol groups, said Martinez fired at him first.

Martinez has said he never fired a gun at Ready and was misidentified.
He was charged with assault and threatening and intimidation, but those
charges were dropped when he pleaded guilty to the misdemeanor of giving
false information. Authorities say Martinez gave a false name.

While immigration officials don't keep statistics on illegal re-entries,
most people know that returning immigrants back to the border can
sometimes be like pouring water into a bucket with a hole in the bottom.

"Every day there are hundreds crossing, and some of those hundreds were
removed a matter of hours before," said Russell Ahr, a spokesman for
Immigration and Customs Enforcement. "Once they go right back out into
Mexico, they are out of (this) country's control, so a lot of them turn
right around and try to get back in."

There is a logical reason for the problem, said Nadia Flores, Texas
A&M University professor and a researcher for Princeton University's
Mexican Migration Project.

"If the person is deported to the border town, and the person has
nothing, they have no money or they have nowhere to go, the only thing
they can do is to come back," Flores said.

Ira Mehlman, spokesman for the Federation for American Immigration
Reform, which favors limiting immigration, said some immigrants accept
voluntary repatriation because they know they can sneak back into the
country again quickly.

"If you weren't just across the border it would be more of a problem to get back," Mehlman said.

Ahr said Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents typically take
deportees as far as the Nogales checkpoint and watch them walk into
Mexico to make sure they are fully repatriated. Not much stops them from
simply turning around and coming right back, he said.

As for Martinez, the 33-year-old is unapologetic for being an illegal immigrant.

All he cares about is moving up the social ladder: Finding a good-paying
job, meeting the right woman, having children. He said he wants to go
to Florida soon.

Monday, April 24, 2006

30 Phoenix area anarchists, many from the Phoenix Anarchist Coalition (PAC) along with members of the Phoenix branch of the IWW, the Boom Box Crew, and Phoenix Insurgent, attended a counter-demonstration, organized by PAC, against the racist "Americans First" demonstration. Marchers met up a half mile down the road, and walked down to the rally site, where over 150 anti-immigrant protesters were already holding their rally at the Mexican Consulate. As anarchists approached nearly a dozen police cars appeared, and the Americans First rally was quickly disrupted by the anarchists shouting and shit-talking, which enraged the anti-immigrant crowd, much to the anarchists' pleasure. The media reached anarchists first, followed by the American Firsters, and finally the police. The groups were quickly separated by 30 Phoenix PD officers, who remained there for the arguing and shouting matches that went on for nearly two hours. No one was arrested, but one participant of the anti-immigrant rally was detained after police learned he was carrying a concealed firearm in his belt. [If we ignore them will they go away?]

The April 22 demonstration took place at the Mexican Consulate in west Phoenix, on the heels of 200,000 Latinos and working people marching against the criminalization of their class by racist politicians. The protest on the 22nd was organized by JT Ready (photo of JT Ready at the border), a member of the Minuteman CDC, a white vigilante organization that patrols the American border with Mexico aiding the border patrol in apprehending migrants. Ready recently ran for a failed bid for a city council position in Mesa (A city in the Phoenix-metro area), but his candidacy was overshadowed after he opened fire on Efrain Martinez, an undocumented immigrant, who Ready accused of casing his car (For more info on the Martinez shooting, check out this post on Phoenix Insurgent). Ready is one of the most dangerous of the anti-immigrant set, valley anarchists wanted to make sure he felt the heat this time around, many of the signs carried reflected a strong anti-Ready sentiment, with one sign saying "Vote JT Ready: Imperial Grand Wizard 2006!", another sign was in support of Efrain Martinez. Anarchists made sure to catch Ready's attention to heckle him a number of times.

The Americans First rally followed the typical Minuteman rhetoric, "we don't hate Mexicans, just the twelve million illegal immigrants," "We're not racists, but I'm just tired of no one speaking English anymore." This was an expected aspect of the rally, as valley anarchists have confronted the Minutemen, and related white vigilantes a number of times, what was truly unsettling was the escalation in their rhetoric and their anger this time around. It was such an ugly scene that even reporters and police were shaking their heads. One anarchist overheard a few police officers talking about the anti-immigrant demonstrators, one officer was heard saying "these people are crazy", another responded "I know, it gets worse everytime, more flags this time too." Much of this has to do with the mainstreaming of the Minuteman movement, recently new groups have emerged in Phoenix, such as Mothers Against Illegal Aliens, and JT Ready's Americans First, both groups are busy expanding the anti-immigrant sentiment amongst white working class and lower-middle class whites in the Phoenix area. The border may be where the battles are taking place, but their base of power is in the cities, Phoenix and Tucson in Arizona, San Diego and the Los Angeles area in California.

Anarchists and "American First"ers were in a variety of heated arguments, some turned into good ol' shit talking and insults (anarchists were great at this) as the American Firsters could not listen. Everytime an anarchist spoke, they were interrupted by "Oh yeah, well what do you know about...(such and such)." It was impossible to have a dialog, and equally impossible to up the level of confrontation due to their much larger numbers, and police protection.

Phoenix anarchists have been very active over the last few years working with Latino advocacy groups, unions, and grassroots organizations to fight against a number of ballot initiatives, racist politicians, and militia organizations in Arizona. We will continue to advocate for no borders and to confront white vigilantism.

About 100 illegal immigration protesters gathered Saturday outside the Mexican Consulate in Phoenix in an event organized by former Mesa City Council candidate JT Ready. "The Mexican people have to realize the government of Mexico is a threat," Ready said. "They are corrupt against their own people."

Ready said the protest was not in response to the immigration rights demonstration earlier this month, where more than 100,000 mostly Hispanic protesters marched to the state Capitol. But some of the protesters who showed up Saturday spoke out against that event. "I look at that demonstration as an attack on our government and an attack on the American people," said Glendale resident Iva Underwood.

The American government needs to focus on Americans, she said. "I believe charity begins at home," Underwood said. "We've got too many problems within our own country."

"We hate the illegals, our border should be closed," said Louise Lonsdale of Phoenix. "People need to realize we're being taken over."

Debates flared between the protesters and about 30 proimmigration activists who showed up to counterprotest.

One pro-immigration activist, Phoenix resident Eric Malatesta, 32, wore a black handkerchief across his face and waved a sign that read: "JT Ready is a Racist and Trigger Happy."

"I am here to show solidarity with the immigrants and the poor people," he said. "They insist they are not racists despite the fact that they are a very angry group of white people protesting the Mexican Consulate."

Sunday, June 19, 2005

Two Tempe Town Lake penthouse condos recently sold – for more than $2.1
mil apiece. I guess some people just can’t pay enough for the smell of
stagnant, rotten dam runoff.

And just down the street, something far smellier is wafting in: the
Centerpoint Condominiums are slated to begin construction soon, an event
which will begin the final, brutal assault on whatever shadow of life
still lingers in the woebegone, robocorporate fluff-hole of downtown
Tempe.

Once built, these luxury “mixed-use” condos will be weighing in at four
towers and twenty-two stories, making them by far the largest
structures in the Tempe landscape. And this won’t be your everyday
block-long cluster of skyscrapers: with units starting at around
$250,000, this is the kind of place even the Jeffersons aren’t likely to
be moving on up to.

But hey, look at all the crazy, decadent
rich-person shit you get: in addition to a 1,300-space parking garage
(secured, natch!), residents get access to a wine lounge, a fitness
center, at least two spas, yoga and pilates studios, an “electronic
lounge,” two in-house movie theaters, “deluxe meal[s] cooked by
full-time resident chef Troy Thivierge,” concierge service, and an
“urban beach with sand and shaded patio.” Wow – it’s Beverly Hills in a
box!

To get a better idea of just how bad Tempe will soon suck for normal
people, here’s Ken Losch, principal of Avenue Communities and one of the
project’s high priests:

We spent over a year researching and touring more than 200 properties
across North America and there is no other project of this magnitude in
the United States or Canada.... Centerpoint will have a spectacular
international and cosmopolitan appearance, but it will also have a
strong sense of community that is lacking in so many other developments.

Oh sure, it’ll have a “strong sense of community.” Just don’t ever dream
of being a part of this community – that is, unless your idea of home
is hanging out with pedicured, ruling-class caucasian golf enthusiasts
in a fucking country club biodome.

And hey, maybe if the rest of us are lucky we can get hired at one of
the dozens of Starbucks they’re sure to plant in every corner of the
“exclusive amenity level,” so the yuppie fucks won’t even have to
descend to street level to get their half-decaf skim McLattes.

All of this is already pretty nauseating; but, if you can stomach it,
try sampling this last little nugget of corporate corpulence:

In addition, the Valley’s first true urban grocery will encompass the
majority of the first floor of phase one. The 16,000 square-foot
gourmet grocery, deli and café will further connect the residents to
downtown Tempe by offering a service that currently does not exist.

If tears of incomprehension and rage are not yet streaming down your
crumpled face, it is because you haven’t heard that, just down the
street, another condo project (this one a mere 16 stories) has bought
out the Gentle Strength Co-op’s parcel of land. Gentle Strength, of
course, is Tempe’s current “gourmet grocery, deli and café”! But I guess
there’s not much we can say about that now – the co-op’s own management
negotiated the sale of their property to the developers. Thanks, y’all!
Nothing says “community empowerment” like selling out an entire
neighborhood to corporate greed.

For a better idea of the delusions and hypocrisy this town employs to
justify such a stratospheric level of development, check out what Jan
Schaefer, Tempe’s economic development administrator, had to say about
the oh-so modest and historically sensitive architecture of University
Ave’s Chase Manhattan building (just across the street from the future
Cosmo Building and the Centerpoint Condos):

We knew that they wanted to build a very nice building... The intention
was to look at historic buildings and build something that would mesh.

“Mesh” you say, Jan? Mesh, you flippant, facetious profit-face? Anyone
who has seen the Chase building knows that the only way that
soul-crippling monstrosity could ever “mesh” is if it was stuffed into
the world’s most giant blender with one hundred million Lexus SUVs and
the exhumed corpse of JP Morgan. This is what happens when you live in a
city so eager and willing to sell itself out that it takes real-estate
developers and multinational banking institutions at their word.

Of course, the sick irony of this is that soon, the entire landscape
surrounding the Chase Manhattan building will be mutated and debased
enough to “mesh” around this one awful building – as soon as these
gentrifying land-pimps and spineless bureaucrats finally get around to
burying the entire rest of our town under identically awful
blue-mirrored peach & teal monoliths.

This is the future, my friends – and you weren’t invited!

If you have computer access, this publication strongly recommends that
you educate and enrage yourself about Tempe projects such as the
Centerpoint Condos, the Cosmo Building, and the Chase building. For a
start, check out and
index.shtml#1> to get a firsthand look of what our town is going to look like, post-Centerpoint.

If you’re without access to the web, there’s another easy way to get
information about the Centerpoint Condos: walk down to the parking lot
on 5th & Farmer. On the east side of the lot – right in front of the
patio seating at Z’Tejas – there’s a trailer-sized billboard covered
with advertising for the condos, complete with a giant television screen
playing a continuous loop of a commercial for the project. It’s the
same ad that they show on their website, and it’s playing to passersby
at most times of the day and night.

Sunday, June 5, 2005

A couple weeks ago – in the middle of a generally low-income
neighborhood and just two blocks from my house – they laid the
foundation for yet another luxury “mixed-use” condo.

The website for the Merrion Square Lofts
() claims that the area in
which these “luxury two-story lofts” are located – the northwest corner
of Beck & University – is a

dynamic urban setting that has produce [sic] some of the most
sought-after real estate in the city. A magnet for new restaurants, art
galleries, retailers and progressive business [sic].

This description seems a bit flattering if you consider that right now,
Beck Avenue north of University is mostly just a “magnet” for cops...
Oh, wait, you must be talking about Mill Avenue – that place where the
pod people go to consume when they’re homesick for Burbank!

The literature sniffs on:

Refined amenities blend with your own panache for interior design to
create a unique environment that lets you fully express yourself and
your love of the arts.

Are you starting to get a hint of the kind of vermin this trap is trying
to lure? Our neighbors will soon be the type of people who use words
like amenities and panache with a straight face.

The Merrion Square condos also promise, in accordance with your
generously well-endowed pocketbook and bourgeois affectations, a

place to dine, dream, entertain, and renew yourself in the company of
like souls. Surrounded by deco-styled accents and comfortable lofts,
provide [sic] all of the elements necessary for the perfect urban home.

Translation: “Don’t worry, folks – we’ve got a strict anti-beaner policy
in this joint!” All this “refined” homeopathic psychofluff just reeks
of LA-variety status obsession – the kind that's both New Age and old as
the crusades. It’s Klan for the kappuccino set. “Renew yourself”? Shit.

The aristocratic smarm reaches its climax with this passage:

What attracts people and businesses here is an uncommon desire for a
more active, urban way of living and doing business away from suburban
sprawl, commuter traffic and the responsibilities of conventional home
ownership. Tempe’s lifestyle is about freedom and creative living –
following a path of your choosing.

“Tempe’s lifestyle”? “Freedom and creative living”? Now we’re
definitely not talking about the same neighborhood. The last time I
checked, people on my block hardly had the “freedom” to walk outside at
night without getting interrogated by the pigs. Most people here are
still hardly even “free” enough to pay their rent on time. They must be
talking about that other Tempe “lifestyle” – the one over by that
artificial new “lake,” in those half-million-dollar “mega-offices”
nobody over here in the real world will ever see the inside of, unless
we’re cleaning out their mega-toilets.

Please, let’s stop talking about this yuppie rampart like it’s some
kind of summer camp, and see it for what it is: the latest chapter in
Tempe’s ongoing war on the poor. Plain and simple, it’s gentrification.

The hidden code
Some people would make you think that real-estate development is a
complicated economic process – but really, gentrification is easy to
understand if you just learn how to translate the code.

For instance, the words “redevelop and revitalize” are used frequently
by developers and city councils when they want to whitewash a new
gentrification project. The city government of Tempe even has its own
“Redevelopment & Revitalization Task Force.” Sure, peppy feel-good
verbs like “revitalization” don’t sound like anything worth opposing.
Who could possibly be against vitality?

But then, don’t they have to tear down existing stores and homes to
“redevelop”? And why do these new, more-vital developments they build
always seem to be priced so that only wealthy people can afford to live
and shop in them? And don’t a lot of these new properties become
secondary homes and “investments” that are likely to sit empty for at
least part of the year?

Knocking down affordable housing; tearing down trees; paving green
lots; and replacing it all with a bunch of locked, empty, overpriced
rooms – how exactly does this bring vitality to a neighborhood? Does
kicking poor people out of a neighborhood develop it into a better place
to live? Or are redevelopment and revitalization just code words for
plain old destruction, theft, and greed? Who and what is getting
“revitalized” by this process? Who is going to benefit from the
development? Will it be you?

I guess the answer to all these questions will depend on who you’re
asking – the rich people making money off the new condos, or the poor
people forced from their homes and businesses because of them.

Now, think about Merrion Square’s “dynamic urban setting.” No one can
really imagine what these words actually mean – but whatever it is, it
sure sounds like fun, doesn’t it? The words are just vague enough to
promise everything and define nothing.

But notice the word dynamic – what exactly is in motion here? The
answer is, as usual, just money. Poor people are moving out; the rich
are moving in. Take off the PR spin, and in “dynamic urban setting”
you’ll find a more honest, hidden message to the upwardly mobile: It’s
time to invest. It’s a subtle guarantee that property values will
continue to rise – good news for people playing the real-estate market.
Maybe a better way of expressing it might be: “We haven’t yet completely
finished hosing the mud-people out of sight. We’ve kept just enough of
them around to leave a little ‘ethnic flavor’ and a couple of decent
Mexican restaurants. Don’t worry though, you won’t have to actually talk
to any of them – unless you’re telling them how to park your car.”

As for a Merrion Square’s “lifestyle” of “freedom and creative living” –
well, some people have a “lifestyle” and a “creative living”; the rest
of us can only afford “rent” and a “job.” Do you really think the future
inhabitants of Merrion Square are actually going to hang out with the
people who live in this neighborhood now? Do you think they’re going to
stroll over to the Rollins Food Mart or the River of Life food ministry
to get their groceries with the rest of us? Do you think they’re going
to be buying their socks and wrenches from the 99-cent store? Will they
hit up the Multigenerational Center to check their email, or barbecue
with the ballers at Jaycee Park? Of course not. Cheap food, laundromats
and check-cashing booths – i.e., the plain facts of actual urban life –
just aren’t a part of their “active, urban way of living.” They’ll walk
from their apartment doors down to their secured indoor parking garage,
get in their Escalades (lock your doors kids, it’s a bad neighborhood),
and whisk themselves away to Whole Foods, or the Pottery Barn, or LA
Fitness, or Fashion Square, or wherever other fucking place up in
Scottsdale they go to find “the company of like souls.”

Of course, the real plan is to bring Scottsdale down to us. And believe
me, they’re closer to doing this than you might think. Look around the
block – have younoticed all the rich-people crap being built lately?
Merrion Square is just one of a whole infestation of gentrification
projects in this town. There’s another on 1st & Beck. There’s that
“Abbey Lane” cluster just above the future Merrion Square, and those
awful new dayglo office buildings on University between Beck &
Hardy. They’re going to build luxury condos on the empty lot at 5th
& Roosevelt. They have big plans for that whole plot of land between
Roosevelt and Wilson below 5th. That “Regatta Pointe” bullshit around
1st & Farmer has almost swallowed up the Sail Inn. And there’s all
those new weird condos just above the “lake.” We’re surrounded, and the
seige has only begun.

Tempe’s class war
Not too many people realize that the word gentrification is just a
synomym for displacement of the poor. The dictionary calls
gentrification “the process of renewal and rebuilding accompanying the
influx of middle-class or affluent people into deteriorating areas that
often displaces earlier usually poorer residents.” There’s another term
to describe that – class war – and certain people profiting from
gentrification would prefer that you didn’t ever make this connection,
because the building of “luxury” condos is directly related to the
raising of your rent. There is a very real effort, through carefully
chosen words like redevelopment, revitalization, and creative living to
ignore or distort simple facts about the war the rich wage on the poor.
Gentrification is just a continuation of the same old bullshit the rich
have been dealing to the poor since the day they invented the game.

A couple years ago on KAET, Phoenix city council member Tom Simplot
spelled out the essential requirement for a “revitalized” neighborhood
in unusually plain language: “You gotta have some folk.... Not just
folk. Folk with money.” It’s important to understand this simple point.
For all the rhetoric and cheerleading the profit-heads are throwing at
us, gentrification remains a very simple, cruel economic equation: poor
people out, rich people in. The people that profit from this math
already understand all this very well. They know which side of the class
war they’re standing on. Do you?

The good news
The good news is, the only way these people can keep making money off of
our poverty is to keep us complacent, ignorant, and divided enough to
control. That’s why everyone who lives in Tempe today should take the
time to learn how local real-estate developers work. Learn how to read
the hidden code in their lingo. It might even help to learn something
about the business of real estate itself – property laws, tax
exemptions, market indicators and all that. Sure it’s dull as hell – but
have you ever wondered if there’s a reason why it’s so boring and
opaque? Maybe if the jargon was easier to understand, people other than
developers might start forming opinions of their own about what should
be done with the land they live on.

The important thing is to get involved, however you can. Push, and see
who pushes back, and how. Gradually it will become much more obvious who
profits from this system, and who pays for it. The veil of lies
covering gentrifications like the Merrion Square McCondo is pretty
flimsy really, and you can see through it best if you read between the
lines of passages like this one, from Merrion Square’s website, where
they take a moment to speak candidly to potential investors:

The urban rebirth [of Tempe] can most logically be tied to the
investment potential of the area. With the recent announcements of new
construction throughout Downtown Tempe and Phoenix, like the new Hayden
Ferry Lakeside mega office, retail and hotel development, the new
Performing Arts Center on the Lake, new hotels and the Papago Park
Business Center, it’s clear that if general property values go up,
lofts, condominiums and housing values should go up as well, despite
what is happening in today’s stock market. Whether it is the purchase of
a new loft or office condominium, buyers can feel secure in their
investment choice.

Hotels, mega offices, and business centers, oh my! Somebody’s about to
make a lot of money evicting a lot of poor people out of Tempe. Nowhere
in their sales pitch will you find a single mention of anything that
would make life liveable for people who don’t have lots of extra money.
When “property values” go up, small businesses get replaced by corporate
chains. When “housing values” (our rents) go up, we get kicked out of
our homes. This makes way for the yuppie “rebirth” of what was once our
neighborhood, but is now just another vacuum of yuppie condos and
generic sprawl, another concentration of privilege and excess where you
aren’t allowed to live. It’s a process that’s already happened time
after time in this city, and in other cities across the continent. And
it doesn’t show any signs of slowing down today.

Don’t forget, property is theft – and this kind of crime pays well, if
you’re on the right side of the class war. And what about the rest of
us? No one’s going to invest money in a community garden, or
neighborhood solidarity, or affordable housing for the homeless and
unemployed, or any other facet of human life that can’t be manipulated
and exploited for the sake of a few extra thousand bucks.

Remember all this the next time you pass by the big sign on Beck &
University, the one hailing the arrival of Merrion Square Lofts. They’ll
try and tell you that they’re doing you a favor by building another
pricey, pretentious condo; that their war on the poor is an improvement
rather than an affront. They’re lying to you. Remember that none of
these people are a part of your community.

Remember that every last one of these profit-addicted investors and
developers are coming to town for one reason: to make a fortune off of
your poverty. Every last one of them. Everyone who drafted the business
plan for this abberation; every well-intentioned architect; every
weak-minded and naive city planner; every opportunistic investor and
franchise-holder; every real-estate agent and property manager who
stepped on our heads just to grab a little profit. We’ve got nothing in
common with these people, and they’ve got no desire to cut us an even
break. This is war, whether you realize you’re fighting in it or not.

To the “folk with money,” the people who now live on Beck Avenue – and
in poor neighborhoods everywhere – are just obstacles to their crusade
for endless profit and sprawl.
So when do we start fighting back?

Wednesday, June 1, 2005

You have fewer civil rights enlisted in the military than you do in
prison. As a detainee, you have the right to test the legality of your
detention as many times as you want – but once you’ve enlisted, you have
no legal right to contest your situation. One-third of homeless men are
veterans. Many veterans are ill with Gulf War Syndrome.

Myths
told by military recruiters lead teens to exchange their lives and civil
liberties for promises of college funds, travel and adventure. Here
lies the military’s Achilles heel – if they were given enough
information about the truth of enlistment, most people would never join
the military.

The Arizona Counter-Recruitment Coalition
The Arizona Counter-Recruitment Coalition (AZCRC) is a group of
students, teachers, parents, veterans, and workers from the Phoenix
metro area who provide information and perspectives to counterbalance
the one-sidedness of military recruiters. We advocate for a society that is
truly secure, through the principles of cooperation, conflict
resolution, and sustainability. We organize to replace the current order
of exploitation, conquest, and domination. We recognize the need to
work with other like-minded organizations, while exploring ways to
connect with those who may initially be opposed to our motives.

Problems
In the struggle for control over a young person’s life, the military has
the upper hand. Military recruiters have access to a student's personal
information from their school, and they use this information to target
the poor, minorities, the young and naïve.

They lie and mislead to meet enlistment quotas. Further, they’re about
to be delivered the ultimate advantage: conscription, i.e. a draft,
which will mandate involuntary servitude and provide the military with a
demographic database on an entire generation. After enlisting, or being
drafted, personal autonomy is lost. Instead, it becomes mandatory to
kill and be killed if ordered to do so, and to serve the interests of
corporate elites who value money and power over humanity and life
itself.
Enlistees who are not killed are likely to be maimed and sustain
lasting damage to their physical and mental health. Veterans of war in
Iraq have a special name for their diseases: Gulf War Syndrome. This may
be caused by forced inoculations, and/or exposure to depleted uranium,
which has devastating effects on soldiers, the environment, and the
innocent civilians who live in these war zones.

The lives of military personnel and the human rights of those who live
within US military targets are sacrificed to keep the world in a
stranglehold of US economic hegemony. Upon returning, soldiers often
bring home the violent culture of war, beating and sometimes killing
their spouses and kids, and suffering the anguish of Post Traumatic
Stress Syndrome.

Solutions
Students, parents, and teachers must reclaim control of their schools
from the military and work to inform people about the dangers of
militarism. We want to empower parents who wish to invoke their legal
right to withhold their child’s contact information from the military.
We are reaching out to students with flyers and presentations, informing
them of their rights, and helping students create counter-recruitment
clubs on-campus.

We are continuously seeking teachers and administrators who see a need
to provide a broader and unbiased examination of the military, past and
present, in the world and in their schools. We believe that the
students’ best interests are served when educators teach them to use
critical thinking when presented with the slick marketing campaign that
recruiters use to attract possible recruits.
Lastly, we demand that school administrations provide us with equal
time and space to present our point of view at assemblies and job fairs,
and to place our alternative literature in career counseling centers.

Alternatives
Security: We believe our society will never be truly secure so long as
we enjoy a much higher level of consumption than the rest of the world,
based on military conquest and exploitation of the poor and the
environment. Only when all people are recognized as free and equal, with
access to affordable education and adequate resources to meet their
basic needs, in ways that preserve a heritage of natural resources for
future generations, can we live in peace and safety.

Economics: Military recruiters often target economically disadvantaged
young people with promises of college money, job training, and a ticket
out of their financial dead end. Not only are these promises in most
cases misleading, we have found that when given enough information, most
young people don’t feel that the gamble of risking their lives and
long-term physical/mental health is worth the possible benefits.
However, we must acknowledge the lack of local sustainable
community-based economic opportunities that can make “three hots and a
cot” in a battle zone seem tempting.
If we want to build an effective movement to oppose the militarization
of society, we need to seek out, support, and even create more job
opportunities that are truly productive, locally owned and locally
controlled, so that the money generated stays in our community. We also
need to help young people get access to alternative sources of college
money and job training if we wish to successfully challenge the “poverty
draft.”

Goals:
-Decentralized networking of counter-recruitment groups, including
on-campus student groups who are working to stop military recruitment
-Building draft resistance through education and networking
-A network of support for veterans – one that acknowledges their situation and illnesses due to service
-The repeal of school policies such as the No Child Left Behind Act and
ASVAB testing, as well as the replacement of JROTC programs with
electives.

Tactics:
-Distributing counter-recruitment literature to those who are targeted by military recruiters
-Speaking at and organizing community events where people can meet
other like-minded individuals interested in military and draft
resistance
-Speaking and tabling at events where our perspectives would otherwise be unheard.
-Demonstrating in the streets to show our frustration and opposition
and to bring pressure on those who support war and recruitment.